2/20/18 Kings & Queens

Correspondent Sam Shirley gives us a great photo report from “small but mighty” King Pine ski area in New Hampshire.  Unless you’re from the region, you probably aren’t familiar with this one.  King Pine is a 300 footish ski hill at Purity Springs Resort, which caters to well-to-do Boston suburbanites with young children.  Located just a bit south of the Mt. Washington Valley areas, King Pine is mostly gentrified and gentle, with the exception of a pair of trails that are among the steepest in the state — and perhaps the shortest as well.  Photo above gives you a good idea of the place; here’s what Sam found yesterday…

…a beautiful bluebird day at King Pine. 100% of trails were open and the new snow made for a very nice surface. Pine Brule and Pitch Pine were left ungroomed, but everything else was groomed. It was very busy and lines were sometimes 5 minutes long or more, but if you worked the lifts correctly lines were mostly avoidable. Glades were very thin and 2 out of 3 weren’t worth skiing.

…that’s the King, now to the Queen…Lindsey? Mikaela?  Anna?  Tina?  Lara?  I could’ve done this all day, and never guessed that snowboarder Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic would wear the Olympic Super G crown in Pyeongchang this year.  Neither did the Austrians, nor NBC-TV,  so apparently I’m in pretty good company.  I have to say I’ve been a bit chagrined at the way NBC declares winners in speed events with about 30 skiers left to race. Now admittedly only a half dozen are even long shots at best, but NBC was acting as if they had no shot at all. Well do your homework, big time network, and you would’ve known that Ester finished 7th in Lake Louise earlier this year. Lesson learned I guess, for all of us. As for Ms. Ledecka, I believe she still has a snowboard event to compete in, and I expect the entire sports world will be covering that run.

Ladies downhill tomorrow in Korea — tonight in USA time. My other beef with NBC is when they predict a gold medalist in a speed event, which is absurd — looking over tonight’s (tomorrow’s) start list, there are nearly two dozen women who could conceivably take the downhill gold. They are competing at the extreme edge between safety and chaos, and anything can happen, as Ester Ledecka proved Friday night!


Back to King Pine, we leave you with more of Sam’s photos from yesterday…